Fantastic Fest review: Halloween is a worthy follow-up to the original

The Halloween franchise has had a rocky history. John Carpenter’s 1978 original is a certified horror masterpiece, a lean and mean exercise in less-is-more filmmaking that has inspired countless tributes (and knockoffs) over the ensuing decades. From there, things get murkier. Halloween II has its fans, while the Michael Myers-free Halloween III: Season of the Witch was mostly maligned upon its release, and is only now beginning to be appreciated for the clever left-turn it was. The rest of the franchise is mostly forgettable, and the less said about the Rob Zombie “reimaginings” the better.

With the incredibly convoluted Halloween back story that has evolved over the years, the best approach was simply to wipe the slate clean and continue on from the original, which is exactly the path that David Gordon Green (director and co-screenwriter with Danny McBride) has taken with this continuation of the Michael Myers and Laurie Strode story. Best known for buddy comedies like Pineapple Express and contemplative character studies including Prince Avalanche, Green manages to inject Halloween with some great moments of humour that he carefully balances against the brutal outbreaks of violence and gore.

Set 40 years after the events of the original film, Halloween opens with a pair of podcasters looking to explore the nature of Michael Myers and his violent attack in Haddonfield, Illinois four decades prior. Looking for a Serial-like take on the infamous Halloween murders, the pair visit Michael Myers in prison in an effort to get him to finally speak, bringing along his infamous mask as a ploy to elicit some reaction from Myers who has been silent ever since his incarceration. This is their last-ditch attempt to meet Myers before he is transferred to a new prison where he won’t be permitted any outside visitors, a plan that of course goes south early on in the film.

The pair also visit Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis), who now lives a secluded life in a wooden fortress she has created in case Myers ever returns. Laurie has been struggling with the effects of that traumatic night for decades, raising her daughter in full-out survivalist mode before she was eventually removed from her home. Her grown daughter (Judy Greer) now has a teenage daughter of her own named Alysson (Andi Matichak) who she tries to keep at a distance from her unbalanced, emotionally damaged grandmother.

Needless to say, Michael Myers never makes it to that maximum security prison, setting up an eventual confrontation between Myers and Laurie that she has been physically and mentally preparing for over the past four decades.

Green nails the film’s tone down perfectly, capturing Michael Myers in a way we haven’t seen since John Carpenter’s original. There is no new back story element to contend with, and we don’t learn any more about his childhood through some needless exposition. Myers is simply a brute force of nature once again, a massive being who single-mindedly dispatches anyone that catches his eye or finds themselves in his way.

The eventual confrontation with Laurie is a tense standoff with a number of visual nods to the original, even flipping the script at points as the hunter becomes the hunted. Laurie has become something of a Sarah Connor character over the years, stocking up weapons and creating a heavily fortified bunker in preparation for the day that Myers would return.

This version of Halloween rises about the sea of sequels because of its simplicity — the main focus here is on the traumatic experience Laurie has gone through, and how that trauma has affected the next two generations of Strodes. As Curtis mentioned in a post-screening Q&A at Austin’s Fantastic Fest, Laurie went back to classes on November 1st four decades ago, and was never given any help to process the terrifying events of that Halloween night. By focusing on Laurie’s trauma, Halloween finally has some heart back in it, which is only reinforced in the cathartic all-out attack that closes out the film.

With some great moments of levity and some truly intense moments of violence, this latest take on Halloween has everything that fans of the original could possibly hope for, including a thrilling new score from John Carpenter. If the Halloween franchise continues (which this film very clearly seems to be setting up), it’s in very good hands.

Halloween opens in theatres on October 19th.